1814: Lt. General Gordon Drummond's 1,100 troops having captured the American naval base of Fort Ontario, with its valuable supplies and schooners, Col. Fisher and Capt. Mulcaster held the fort against strong counterattacks. Ultimately the base was destroyed, and British control of Lake Ontario established until the close of the War of 1812

1859: Robert Hobson of the McClintock expedition finds a cairn with a paper signed by Fitzjames and Crozier, dated April 25, 1848, confirming their disaster; it was the last known log log of the ill-fated Franklin expedition, sent to discover the North West passage

1917: Corporal George ‘Snowy’ Howell MM, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery in actions near Bullecourt on the Western Front

Cpl Howell climbed onto the top of a parapet and under heavy fire proceeded to bomb the enemy, pressing them back along the trench. After he exhausted his stock of bombs, he continued to attack the enemy with his bayonet, before being severely wounded.

A month before this action he was awarded the Military Medal "for courage and devotion to duty while leading a rifle bombing section" during the battalion's capture of the village of Demicourt.
He returned to Australia and was discharged on 5 June 1918. He later served as a Staff Sergeant at Headquarters, Eastern Command, during the Second World War before joining the United States Sea Transport Service in August 1944.

1937: The hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg crashed while ‘landing’ at the US Naval Air Station, Lakehurst New Jersey, killing 36 of the 97 people on board

1942: US forces on Corregidor Island finally surrendered and with it, all organized resistance to the Japanese in the Philippine Archipelago ended

1944: German U-boat U-66 was sunk about 290 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, by a combination of depth charges, ramming and gunfire from Avenger and FM Wildcat aircraft & destroyer escort USS Buckley. 36 of the 60 submariners survived.

USS Buckley was part of Task Group 21.11, which has been hunting this submarine since 1 May; several attacks had been made, including three Fido homing torpedoes that were dropped on the U-boat.

Finally in the early morning hours of the 6th, the crew of USS Buckley sighted U-66 and after an exchange of gunfire, Buckley rammed the U-boat at 0329. Many of the U-boat survivors, some with small arms, climbed on Buckley's forecastle and the Americans, thinking they were being boarded as in the days of sail, used small arms, hand grenades, fists and a coffee cup to subdue them.

Buckley backed away from the U-boat leaving five armed Germans on the escort who were promptly subdued and taken below. The U-boat started to draw ahead but then turned and hit the escort near its engine room opening a hole on the starboard side and for the second time the U-boat was raked with gunfire. The U-boat finally sank after a salvo from Buckley's 3-inch gun after one of the longest fights in the war

1996: The body of former CIA director William E. Colby was found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he'd disappeared